Abortion Reduction Revisited

I don't have a brilliant program in mind. All I have is process of
elimination: If most people in this country, including me, aren't
willing to ban abortions (check), and if you can't stop people from
having sex (check), and if contraception is the only other way to
prevent pregnancy (check), and if providing access to contraception
hasn't solved the problem (check), then the remaining factor is human
failure to use the contraception. Target that problem. I don't care
whether it's through the federal government, states, clinics, schools,
churches, or Conan O'Brien. All that matters is sending a forceful
message that if you're not prepared to become a parent, you must either
avoid vaginal intercourse or use birth control religiously.

If sex-ed programs aren't getting this message across, come up with
better sex-ed programs. Or go through churches, doctors, parents,
Facebook, Webkinz--whatever. Keep trying until you find something that
works.

Given his premises, this seems fair. Ultimately, I think Saletan's project founders on the difficulty of
moralizing about something that you aren't willing to regulate in any
significant way: Law and culture are intertwined, especially in a
rights-conscious society, and if you want to teach people that they
ought to use condoms because "unprotected sex can
lead to the creation -- and the subsequent killing, through abortion --
of a developing human being," as Saletan's original piece
put it, then you need a legal regime that treats the killing of said
developing human being as something other than a constitutional right
on par with freedom of speech, religion or assembly. But on this much, he and I agree: If you start with the premise that neither American abortion law nor American patterns of sexual behavior can be altered in any significant way, and you want fewer abortions nonetheless, then trying different ways to promote the use of birth control "until you find something that works" is really all you have left.

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